skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Much of the discussion around mobile SEO seems to be a numbers game. Dozens of articles focus on mobile usage statistics – from 25 percent of all searches being performed on mobile devices, to cross-device decision-making. These articles have the goal of assisting professionals get buy-in from their bosses, or freelancers pitch to their clients.
While it's one thing to know that consumers are using a technology, it's quite another to know how, where and for what purposes.
Going Beyond the Mobile Stats
If all we have are mobile usage statistics – essentially quantifying a particular search demographic – then we have few insights on how to actually capture their attention.
This approach only scratches the surface of the present and future of mobile.
This article will look at:
- Distinct technical requirements of mobile SEO.
- Mobile-specific keywords and how to spot them.
- Ways to stop wasting your time with "killer content."
SEO and User Experience: The Real Overlap
Vanessa Fox, RKG's chief product officer, explores the idea of a real overlap between SEO and UX throughout her presentation on buyer personas. In the past, the discussion about this intersection has been about basic shoddy SEO practices, such as keyword stuffing.
Fox goes beyond these entry-level observations and arrives at the crux of what's absent: identifying user intent and motivation.
The overlap between SEO and UX is paramount when it comes to mobile. Few businesses understand that the mobile experience of a website is a unique one – fewer comprehend Google has outright said that a poor mobile experience will demote a domain's rankings.
What sets mobile apart from desktop SEO, then, isn't different weightings of rankings factors, signals, or personalization. Google's mobile algorithm will be (is already?) tailored to prioritize websites that receive immediate, tangible, and positive feedback from users.
This change means that offerings that have been secondary or even tertiary to our conventional services – like link acquisition and keyword optimization – are becoming key, influential best practices.
For mobile, we're going to focus on:
These considerations are what will actuallymake a difference in the mobile SEO value and performance of your website. Plus, it will make your users happy – delighted even. And when all is said and done, you can check how your rankings have been improved (or equally important, defended) using a mobile-savvy platform such as BrightEdge.
Keyword Relevancy
When performing keyword research, there's usually a search phrase that stands out as odd. It could be a niche request, or something completely inane:
I have trouble believing the term "coffee" has the monthly search volume the size of Houston, Texas. What do they expect to accomplish? (Let me know what you think they're up to in the comments.)
Miki Clarke, SEO Manager at MEC Global (AU), draws fantastic conclusions about industry-specific resource pages in an article about differentiating between mobile and desktop SEO. Of course, resource pages are accessed through search by including hyper-relevant keywords. Our main concern is that new mobile-specific keywords are emerging, and forward-thinking SEO professionals need to be aware of them.
Figure out and annotate what's relevant for your website by:
- Crunching the mobile-share percentages of keywords in analytics.
- Marking keywords you already receive traffic from for mobile potential.
- Brainstorm or intuit potential new keywords specific to your niche.
Once you've finished up the legwork, the next steps should be elementary. Start with optimizing titles, meta, and on-page content to include these keywords – preferably with new, dedicated pages that intentionally target your mobile audience.
Remember, mobile screens are tinier than your average desktop. Keep character lengths to 60 characters and 100 characters for titles and meta-descriptions, respectfully.
Context is the New Content
Actually, content was never really that important to begin with.
In the move toward making SEO more intelligent, strategic, and sincere, realizing the importance of intention and context becomes paramount.
Why particularities – such as load time or mobile-specific keywords – are foundational to great mobile SEO is because people who are on the go are looking for actionable, immediate and meaningful websites.
Mobile users are deterred by delays, friction, and unresponsive design. They won't parse keyword-garbled text, or navigate to the depths of some ether to buy products or subscribe to services – especially when competitors treat their time with more respect.
When mobile users are met with discomfort, they bounce and take notice. You can be sure Google is taking notice too.
It's Still About Numbers
Yes – it's still a numbers game.
More important than broader marketing trends, is the data available for particular companies. Whether you're hooked into Google Analytics, Omniture, or CoreMetrics, you'll be able to validate whether mobile is worth investing in today.
In making a case to whomever you're working for, being up on trends can only get you so far. Learning and applying the intricacies of exactly why something is rising in popularity, and exhibiting the expertise of how to plan and execute a strategy is what will win you faith.
Hopefully this article has armed you with something more than statistics – information or inspiration that can help ignite a sincerely user-centric mobile plan. As always, I look forward to your feedback, thoughts, or questions in the comments below.
Jack Allen of iProspect contributed to this post.
Image Credit: Ed Yourdon/Flickr
Original Article Post by Guillaume Bouchard @ Search Engine Watch
Google's most recent update to their defintions of link schemes sent shockwaves through the SEO and online PR world; a real downer to link building strategists.
It's true: the world's largest search engine called links in press releases "unnatural" and is mandating nofollowing them. What does this mean to organizations using press release to gain digital visibility in search and social?
For brands publishing a press release or an article on your site and distributing it through a paid wire service, such as PR Newswire, Business Wire, Marketwire or through an article site, you must first make sure to nofollow the links if those links are "optimized anchor text."
Is This a Big SEO Deal? Yes. No. Maybe.
Google has been slowly squeezing the SEO life out of press releases for a while now.
"In 2006 online press releases were amazing for SEO. In 2013? Not so much," said Joe Laratro, SEO expert and PubCon lead moderator "Online press releases have had very little value in terms of links and content over the past few years – I would say it had been steadily declining. However, I still thought it was a good part of a large organic link building strategy until the new guideline changes."
But what about the anchor text links in past press releases? Will the ghost of Google past haunt companies with surprising penalties in the future? Will brands have to back track to older press releases to protect themselves.
"The real concern for the SEO industry right now should be backdated enforcement. If this is now considered a 'penalizable' tactic, how are companies that have been using this tactic for over a decade going to deal with the old content and links?" Laratro asked. "How quickly can the online newswires update their systems to support the rel nofollow? In my opinion this will have a fairly large effect on the online paid newswire release business."
Many more SEO industry experts agree. The clean up work with old press release content that's been spinning links across the web for years is a big SEO issue.
"There are press releases archived across the web that you will have no control over – how do you clean that up?" asked Bruce Clay, president of Bruce Clay Inc.
"Even if press release distribution companies do something to address their archives, like noindexing old pages (and this is a big if), you're still looking at the larger problem of pruning links on the many sites that have republished those press releases."
Don't Optimize Links, Do... What?
Organizations are now left wondering what they can do with press releases past, present, and future.
"If a client has real newsworthy content, an online press release is worth doing, but I would be very careful with the links at the moment, at least until the rel=nofollow options are live," Laratro said. "Companies should still include one or two links in order to get the reader over to the website or blog. This may cause a shift back to more traditional types of PR work – not necessarily a bad thing."
The Ghost of Press Release Past
The first press release was written in 1906 by Ivy Lee and actually published verbatim in the New York Times. It wasn't until the mid-1990s that wire services began releasing news direct to consumers vis the Internet. Since then, journalists have relied on press releases to help track company news and come up with story angles and sources.
Today the digital press release reaches beyond the journalist and carries company news direct to customers, prospects, bloggers, and more. The press release lifeline streams through the veins of search engines and flows into social media.
Google might have killed the link juice, but press releases are still alive and kicking according to media experts.
"While most of the companies using PR Newswire (and our competitors) are doing so to build awareness of their messages, garner media pick up and to deliver their messaging straight to their target audiences, there is a contingent that are issuing press releases for the sole purpose of generating inbound links, and this is the practice Google is discouraging," said Sarah Skerik, vice president, content marketing, PR Newswire//MultiVu. "This is not an indictment of PR."
The Digital Path of a Press Release: It's About Content Discovery
Press releases are more than a simple SEO tool. Press release content helps reach journalists, influencers, and consumers.
The AP, Dow Jones, Reuters, Bloomberg, and thousands of other major newsrooms worldwide have feeds of press releases piped directly into their editorial systems. And almost 8,000 websites, including some of the world's largest news sites, publish stories as a result of wire services such as PR Newswire.
Let's not forget the social media intersection of press releases. They help fuel the content fire and drive social interaction, sharing, and engagement – and are the launching pad for company news. Taking a drive off main street, press releases are part of the Wall Street creed, meeting financial disclosure.
In 140 characters or less: Press releases drive broad discovery of your news message in search and social.
"None of this has anything to do with link building and SEO," Skerik said. "We believe the value press release distribution provides is in discovery, not links. Driving messages deep into audiences and generating authentic reads, clicks and visibility among relevant audiences and social shares – that's where press releases add value."
Hybrid search industry vet Greg Jarboe, president and founder of SEO-PR, specializes in both PR and SEO and zeroed in on the fact that the PR industry still hasn't fully embraced the concept of public relations optimization, so they might not realize the missing link.
"This is a big SEO deal," Jarboe said. "And it would also be a big deal for PR, if more public relations people were optimizing their press releases. But most of them still aren't."
Less than 15 percent of press releases in corporate newsrooms and posted on the wire services are optimized for search, according to a PressFeed Online Newsroom Survey.
12 Things You Can Do With Digital Press Releases
- Adding links still helps drive traffic to a website. "Driving traffic is one of the primary objectives of website SEO, according to the SEMPO State of Search Report, published by Econsultancy. It can be one of the important objectives of press release SEO, too," Jarboe said.
- Improve the user experience.
- Increase visibility in search and social.
- Use press releases as inroads to more information and details on a blog or website.
- Spark a story idea and attract a journalist or blogger to do a larger story that might gain a natural link.
- Educate and inform your audience.
- Build relationships.
- Report company news or industry data.
- Use images and video to increase pageviews and attention.
- Embed video and multimedia.
- Create an infographic version of press release tell your story.
- Broaden your distribution and use social networks to report news – both paid and organic.
5 Things You Can't Do With Press Releases
- Generate inbound links.
- Add link juice to your SEO campaign.
- Use press releases as part of your link building strategy.
- Optimized anchor text links, Google now says this equates to unnatural links.
- Keyword stuffing.
Summary
Google may have taken away the anchor text links in press releases (and guest posts and articles), but there is still room for press release optimization opportunities like in any other digital content using:
- Optimized keywords.
- Headlines.
- Title.
- Description.
- Hashtags.
- Photos.
- Videos.
- Social media messaging.
Gaming the system is yesterday's news. Today's press releases still work the natural, social, and mobile way of tomorrow.
Image Credit: PR Newswire
Article Post @
Search Engine Watch
Sometimes it seems like we, in the SEO industry, are constantly defending our legitimacy and reputation to the outside world. I received a phone call just a few months ago from someone who, in one breath, told me they needed SEO help and in the next, was talking about what a brunch of crooks “those SEO guys” were. Every industry is bound to have its fair share of bad apples, but those fly-by-night and SEO con-men make it that much harder for the rest of us to earn the trust and respect of our clients that we deserve. Once bit, twice shy, right?
I feel like many SEO professionals would agree with me that the best way to combat this negative reputation is with education. Here’s what Elisabeth Osmeloski of Search Engine Land had to say about it;
I think the SEO industry as a whole still has a long way to go as far as combating low-level tactics and misinformation that exists out there. Collectively, I believe the industry has to work harder to rise above the distrust created by bad SEO – I wish I had an easy solution to that, but I don’t beyond distributing trustworthy information about sustainable SEO practices. Education for all levels – small business owners to the C-level executive is top priority for us at Search Engine Land, Marketing Land & SMX.
Here are 3 reasons why I feel SEO education matters:
1. Educated site owners are less likely to get ripped off.
My least favorite phone call is when I hear from a site owner that got ripped off by a black hat SEO firm and is now left with a penalty and pieces of a shattered online brand. It’s heart-wrenching to hear from a site owner that put their trust in a supposed “expert” and is now paying for it (in addition to whatever price they paid for those services at the beginning). While I don’t expect my clients to be experts in SEO, I feel that more knowledgeable site owners would be able to recognize the red flags in an SEO conman and wouldn’t get played like a fool. Google de-indexed blog networks in the past. If you knew that and you hear your SEO provider talk about their proprietary blog network linking system, then you’ll know that maybe they aren’t really the SEO firm for you.
Obviously learning the nitty-gritty details of SEO can take a lifetime, but when site owners have a better understanding of the big picture (aside from get more links), I feel like they are less likely to get ripped off by smooth talking SEO con-men.
2. Educated site owners have more realistic expectations about their SEO campaigns.
An uneducated site owner might not realize the sheer amount of effort and time that goes into creating and executing a successful SEO campaign. SEO is not just a matter of making some tweaks to your site, building a few links, and calling it a day. Depending on how old your website is, what kind of competition you are facing, and what kind of SEO work you’ve done in the past, it could be several months before you see the real fruits of your SEO labors. If you aren’t aware of that time frame, then waiting for results can get very frustrating!
I still field a lot of calls from site owners that expect instant and overnight success when it comes to their SEO and content marketing campaigns. The simple truth is that a lot of what influences your long-term (and it is long-term!) success is out of our hands. For instance, a few months ago we did a full onsite optimization for a new client’s site, but it wasn’t until about 3 weeks ago that Google re-crawled their site and actually recognized any of our changes. Even though we had made some significant changes (including rewriting content and adding several new pages) those efforts weren’t really “counted” in their favor for several weeks.
The more you understand about how SEO and the search engines work, the more realistic your expectations will be because you aren’t expecting your SEO provider to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
3. The more they understand about what goes into an SEO campaign the more respect clients will have for their SEO partners.
More than once I’ve been asked “so what do you really do?” both by prospective clients and intrigued parties. I try to answer as succinctly as possible because most people don’t have the time (or patience) to listen to the long-form answer. I’ve found that uneducated site owners don’t always appreciate just how much time and effort goes into their SEO campaign. We can’t conjure quality links out of thin air; it takes manual research and clever thinking. We aren’t just targeting keywords at random; we’re using real data to make real decisions. Writing a 1000 word blog post that actually says something and captures the attention of your audience AND is link-worthy, isn’t exactly a walk in the park either! The more site owners know about SEO and all the components that go into it, the more they can appreciate the work that we as SEO professionals do. They might just realize that if you pay $49.95 a month for SEO, that you’re not going to be getting very much…
As Elisabeth said, we as SEO providers and professionals have to work together to raise the level of awareness and SEO education for our clients across all levels of business. In my opinion, more educated clients doesn’t equal less work, it means better relationships with our clients!
image credit: Shutterstock
Article Post @ Search Engine Journal
While search engine optimization (SEO) is already a multidimensional marketing initiative, adding an international component can quickly turn into a large-scale project that can border on being unwieldy, without proper planning or realistic expectations.
The Fundamentals are the Same
The good news for SEO professionals is that the tactics you employ for a domestic effort are still in play in international campaigns. All you will really be doing is adding additional factors to the decisions you make and the way you approach a long-term strategy.
For those who aren't quite experts, it's important to understand the fundamentals of SEO, which apply whether you're optimizing for one country or 100 countries, before you undertake an international SEO initiative. It is not the purpose of this article to provide general guidance on SEO (there are plenty of great articles about that topic on SEW already), but instead to highlight how to undertake a realistic international SEO campaign.
While there are several, the key point is that SEO is not a one-time project. It is an ongoing effort that evolves with changes in:
- Industry sophistication (e.g., how well your competition is adopting SEO strategies and tactics).
- Search engine algorithms that are always in flux.
- Website user experience and technology trends that can interfere with optimization tactics.
- Shifts in consumer behavior and preferences (e.g., keywords and methods used by your audience).
New Dimensions for International Efforts
As if that wasn't enough to keep track of, targeting multiple countries takes us beyond the tactics you employ for a solely domestic effort. Adding to these fundamentals, we now have an international component to factor in.
This means that there are several other components that can play a large role in your rankings, which may not be on your radar if you have only focused domestically in the past. A few of these include:
- Web hosting locations.
- Domain extensions (e.g., the decision to use specific TLDs in your strategy).
- Page content languages.
- URL structures (e.g., using subdomains or subdirectories for pages in specific languages).
- Inbound links' country of origin.
- For long-term link building strategies, you should factor the blogging and social media habits and preferences of the country or countries you are targeting on an individual basis.
I encourage you to read up on these components to determine the impact that each will have.
Be Realistic with First Steps
To put this into perspective, this issue compounds with each additional country that you target. You can see how this can easily become a daunting task for a small marketing team that is given the assignment to optimize in 10 different countries.
The best approach is one that is both focused in scope and realistic in timing and effort. As they say, don't bite off more than you can chew.
Pick one or two countries to focus on that can be thought of as low-hanging fruit. You may have native speakers in your organization, you may be able to easily host a site in your target country, or get bloggers or other content creators to contribute links and articles from those places or many other factors. By focusing in this manner, you'll get much better results in a few places, instead of mediocre results across a variety of countries.
Also, be realistic in what can be accomplished within your timeframe and from a purely logistical standpoint. Don't make hosting in-country a key part of your strategy if you aren't sure your IT team will be able to make it happen.
Don't rely on as-yet-unknown content contributors to be a sole source of inbound links if you might not have the budget to deliver on that. Instead, include them as part of a medium-term or long-term plan, but put your efforts behind the things that you know you can do well right away. The key here is being comprehensive in everything that you do, and having a backup plan for the things that might not be possible just yet.
Be careful to learn how effective each of the tactics you are evaluating is relative to one another. You might want to create a quick table of these individual tactics and the potential benefits and costs. This is an easy way to guide your efforts and keep your priorities straight.
A holistic approach is always the best one when it comes to SEO (as in most things), but you may find moderate to good success by employing the low-hanging fruit in the short-term while you plan out your approach for the more difficult to employ.
Conclusion
A new international SEO initiative is an exciting undertaking, but can be a daunting task when you take factors such as locations, languages and many other elements into account. Your best success will come with that key combination of focus and realism, and your results will continue to grow as you fill out the pieces of your SEO strategy that might take longer to accomplish.
Article Post @
Search Engine Watch
10 blue links. This is how search engines currently answer questions — over a billion times each day. But what if instead of seeing 10 results, you only saw one? Sounds crazy, I know. But search is evolving and this could be its future. And it could be here a lot sooner than you think. Let’s take a look at why.
The Next Evolution of the SERP
We’re all familiar with the big algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin that happen a few times each month, but sometimes we forget that user interface changes can impact click through rate and traffic. This is important to keep in mind, as the actual look and feel of search could be changing drastically. In fact, the next evolution of the SERP could come from a new format called info cards.
While it might be difficult to fathom that info cards could replace the ubiquitous blue links, it’s actually quite plausible — especially when you consider how Google is displaying information in some of their latest products which we’ll explore below.
What Are Info Cards?
Info cards are small, dynamic widgets tailored to show specific information, like the weather, sports scores, or your friend’s status updates. Info cards are not exclusive to Google (see Twitter’s version with their Tweet Card), but they use them heavily in their mobile products like Google Now, Google+ and Google Glass.
The info card format across a few of Google’s mobile products:
Google also uses them to display information in Google Glass:
Many info cards, such as facts about people, places and things, are primarily powered by Google’s Knowledge Graph, which pulls information from Google owned properties like Google+ and Freebase, as well as trusted outside sources like Wikipedia.
Much like a deck of playing cards, info cards stack on top of one another, allowing users to swipe through to the next card, which circumvents the limited screen space on smart phones and Glass.
Given their design, I’m sure you can imagine how these cards might be used to deliver search results. Info cards would have an incredible impact on brands, as searchers would ONLY see the top result at first!
What’s Behind the Big Shift Away From 10 Blue Links
But the potential shift away from blue links to info cards is about a lot more than a makeover of the search results. The real value of info cards lies in the deep personalization Google is building into them.
While hardly a new product, Google Now is paving the way for their deep search experience by delivering information based on your life, not keywords. For example, as I leave my house Google may recommend I take an umbrella if it looks like rain, or an alternate travel route if there is a traffic jam up ahead.
To make these recommendations Google must have access to your email, calendar, location and travel history. For most companies, this would be an impossible task, but with Google’s vast array of products they can easily get this information and much more.
Now consider how this data might be used to enhance a common search such as one for “new car.” Today, a normal search for this term might return several paid listings and 10 organic listings that cover car reviews, videos, manufacturer websites, and local car dealers.
But if you were to layer-on a level of deep personalization, that same search might factor in the following: how far you drive to work, how many kids you have, what cars your friends drive, what car photos you’ve looked at online, current dealer incentives, local dealer inventory, price range based on recent spending habits, best insurance rates, and even your favorite color.
The end result? That search would return an info card with a single car perfectly tailored to who Google thinks you are based on their in-depth user profile.
The Need for a Different Kind of Optimization
While much of the information Google needs to deliver this level of personalization can be found online, some of it — such as inventory levels and insurance rates — would be hard for them to get by simply crawling a Web page. Ultimately they will need a real-time feed of information that they can pipe into their Knowledge Graph.
Because of that, SEO would extend beyond optimizing Web pages to optimizing information feeds. What’s more, the actual optimization itself would change too — from optimizing for keywords that people search for, to optimizing for attributes and behaviors that match consumer profiles.
If this future plays out as described above, SEOs will be responsible for helping search engines make the connection between product data and consumer profiles.
For instance, Volkswagen may be able to provide search engines with a list of specs on their new Beetle TDI, but the search engines may not understand that “clean diesel” really means a fuel efficient, environmentally-friendly car. SEOs will need to provide that context by adding additional information, such as the class of car, awards that highlight its fuel efficiency, and links to topical Web pages that discuss the car’s environmental impact.
The point here is that SEOs will be responsible for filling-out Google’s Knowledge Graph so that the attributes of a product meet the real life needs of a consumer.
3 Tips to Prepare for the Next Evolution of Search
Below are a few things you can start doing today to get ready for the change:
1. Focus on Consumer Behavior: Invest in the tools and resources needed to understand consumer behavior. Last year Target made the news for knowing when a teen girl was pregnant before her father found out. Companies like Target are in an excellent position to rank well in the future, because their products are already mapped to real-life user behavior.
The first step to building consumer profiles is get some basic information about who your users are such as age, gender and location. There are a few simple ways to get at this data:
- Ask them – Conduct a customer survey, let users create profiles on your site, or add a few optional fields during your checkout process.
- Use social networks – When a user creates an account on your site, ask them to do it through Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. You’ll receive a ton of great information such as contact information, location, age, gender, personal interests, number of friends, and most importantly, the ability to post to that user’s timeline (provided they give you permission).
- Use 3rd parties to enhance data – Companies like Acxiom and Experian will take basic user information such as name, email and address, and will overlay it with in-depth profiling data such as household size and income.
Tip: If you have a segment of users that are considered “high value,” you can send that list to Facebook, and they can create a look-a-like group based on similarities to your given segment. That look-a-like group can be setup as a custom audience inside Facebook’s advertising system to help you acquire new users who resemble the high-value segment you already have. parties to enhance data – Companies like Acxiom and Experian will take some
2. Build Consumer Intimacy
The future of search will be about optimizing for a consumer rather than a keyword. Given that, it is important to focus on creating better/more intimate relationships with them. But many brands make the mistake of spending money to build a huge base of fans without building intimacy. They built an audience to broadcast messages to, like a speaker delivering a speech to a large crowd. Now they’re finding out that it’s really hard to create intimacy this way. So in essence, they’ve shot their SEO efforts in the foot trying to keep up with the Jones’ follower count.
Keep in mind that Google+ will play an important role in the future SERPS, not only because it acts as an ID system for searches, but because Google can map-out the depth of a relationship between a user and a brand. The stronger the relationship, the greater the trust will be, and the better the search experience.
3. Prepare for The Knowledge Graph
Today the Knowledge Graph is largely based off Freebase, Wikipedia, and a few other sources. Studying the structure of Freebase will give you clear insight into how Google wants its data structured for the Knowledge Graph.
Google is taking steps to better structure Web pages as crawling them is a very inefficient process, as far as data capturing goes. It’s much more effective to send data through an API or product feed. With that in mind, spend time familiarizing yourself with microdata, Freebase, and other structured data sources Google uses. It will make the transition process much easier once Google opens up the Knowledge Graph to more outside sources.
The Future of Search is on Its Way. Are You Prepared?
If Google flipped the switch tonight from 10 blue links to info cards, how would you fare? Would you know what product attributes match your target consumers? Do you have a grasp of structured data, and a process for exporting your product information into a useable feed? Have you built real relationships on Google+ and other social channels? If not, you might want to start. Today.
How well prepared are you for the future of search results? What steps have you taken to get ready for the next evolution in search?
Article Post @ Search Engine Journal
Posts
